Goal-ie

I let the weekly goal setting fall by the wayside when the time came to start gearing up for NaNoWriMo–since that was pretty much the only goal I’d intended to focus on through the end of November, and it seemed pointless to reiterate that every week. Then, of course, life happened, and the holidays, and apart from just getting through those with my sanity intact I was pretty aimless there for a while. And although I know I said I don’t feel like setting any big goals for the year, I still have plenty of Stuff I Need To Get Done, and breaking it down into weekly goals has proven a pretty good way to get myself on track.

In case you’re new and don’t feel like following that link up there for the full run-down, here’s how it works. Each Monday (more or less) I post one goal for each of three areas of my life: personal, business, and writing. Each goal will remain on the list until it’s accomplished, at which point I’ll move on to a new goal. This helps me stay focused on one thing at a time and keeps me from poking too many irons into the fire all at once.

This week, I need to revisit the first personal goal I posted back in August: getting dressed every day. I was making good progress there for a while, but I’ve backslidden to a place where I don’t bother changing out of my jammies unless I need to go somewhere. This time I’m going to go one better and not only get dressed, but also take the extra five minutes to put on a little makeup. Knowing I look presentable makes me feel better about myself, and like I’m ready for anything. I predict that this will have a positive impact on my productivity. We shall see.

My business goal for this week is to make good progress coding my new web design for The Task Wrangler. It will do a better job of showing off what I’m capable of as a web designer, so the sooner I get it up, the better. I’ve got to juggle that with two or three client web projects, though, so getting it done will be a challenge. Not sure yet how I’m going to get it done, but it’s got to get done, so I’ll figure something out.

But hopefully not at the expense of my writing. I haven’t written a lick of fiction since the second week of November, and I think it’s high time I remembered that I’m a writer and start, y’know, writing. To that end, tomorrow (it’s Sunday night as I type this) is the day I shall start making revisions and writing new scenes for Hero Factor. I’d like to have the second draft done by the end of the month. With no fewer than twelve new scenes to write to replace the ones I threw out, I’m not sure that will happen, but I think if I get started I can still be on track to start submitting it to agents by my birthday. I’m going to try to carve out two hours a day for it, first thing in the morning before anything else has a chance to distract me.

So those are my goals for the first work week of 2010. What about you, dear reader? Has the new year got you fired up to tackle some goals? If so, share them in the comments. Hey, maybe we can start a club or something!

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3 thoughts on “Goal-ie”

Business goal: finish writing (or tweaking) a syllabus for both classes, then plan lessons for at least three weeks. Writing goal: I’d like to get a start on a thesis chapter. Really, I’d love to have a draft by next Wednesday, but I’m not sure how realistic that is. But next Wed. is when the class I’m taking starts, and it’s being taught by one of my thesis advisors. I need to have something to give him. Personal goals: Not to spend so much time on ffnet. Or at least wait until I’ve spent time on the other two goals.

I have a few goals for this week.
Work: I’ve got a few people I need to contact, and I sometimes get nervous about dealing with people. So I want to do all my emailing/phonecalling early this week.
Writing: I’ve got a resolution for the entire year to write something for tamingthemuse every week and for open on sunday every week. So this week’s goal is to write something for each of those and also to start (and finish) my serenity_santa gift.
Weightloss: This is really my personal goal, but this year I’m focusing on getting my weight under control. I’m doing WW, so this week’s goal is to track everything I eat.

You might’ve already seen my oversized writing goals for 2010. So far…3 days down and today is off to an adequate start. At least on the *writing* side “writing”. On marketing/submitting side, I haven’t done a single thing yet. That’s the big area for me to work on this year.
As someone who’s been self-employed since 1999, I hear you on the “getting dressed”. =) These days (except for weekends), I prefer not to start working (whatever that might mean for a given day) until after I shower and get dressed. There were days early on when I would get up…eat breakfast…work for 5-6 hours…finally shower and put on clothes. I liked to say my commute was “about 30 seconds, from my bed to my desk”. 😉 But, yeah, it never really felt “proper” (for lack of a better word). I eventually managed to re-establish some “discipline” (to use the word loosely). Now my weekdays start breakfast, workout, shower, *work*. Of course…*when* my day starts is still very much a big question…could be 8-ish…could be noon-ish…
-David